We are not robots. We feel things. We can't survive on comedic bromances and CGI-ed action sequences alone. We like our joy, but we need our sadness, too. So bring a box of Kleenex and settle in for some melancholic movie-watching. It's not about wallowing in misery. It's about getting lost in a story that captures the full human experience, with all of its highs and lows.
A good drama hits you right where it hurts, whether it's Blue Valentine 's broken romance or Fruitvale Station 's sense of injustice. If these cinematic tear-jerkers don't have you crying, keening, and curling up into a little ball, we don't know what will.
Rabbit-Proof Fence(2002)
Kenneth Branagh plays the baddie in this Australian drama about three mixed-race Aboriginal girls who try to make their way home after being ripped from their families and placed in a settlement camp for "half castes." The film is loosely based on a true story.
Pictured: Everlyn Sampi and Tianna Sansbury
Photo: Moviestore Collection/Rex/Shutterstock.
The Book Thief(2013)
Based on Markus Zusak's bestselling book of the same name, this story about a book-loving orphan entrusted to a German family in 1938 strings together a series of heartbreaking plot points. Star Sophie Nélisse is a wonder as the lead character Leisel.
Pictured: Sophie Nélisse
Photo: Moviestore Collection/Rex/Shutterstock.
The Danish Girl(2015)
Eddie Redmayne's Einar Wegener struggles to find love and acceptance as he transitions into a woman, while Alicia Vikander, playing Wegener's wife Gerda, beautifully captures a sense of loss. The train station scene is brutal.
Pictured: Eddie Redmayne
Photo: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock.
Schindler's List(1993)
Unless you're Jerry Seinfeld, this Oscar-winning story about heroism during the Holocaust will have you weeping uncontrollably right down to the end credits.
Pictured: Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson
Photo: Snap/Rex/Shutterstock.
The Pursuit of Happyness(2006)
Just keep reminding yourself that this based-on-a-true-story film has a happy ending as you watch Will Smith constantly struggle to support his son (a pre-Louis Vuitton Jaden Smith) and get a pinky toe on the corporate ladder.
Photo: Snap Stills/Rex/Shutterstock.
Southpaw (2015)
Consider this a sucker punch to the heartstrings. A surprise twist elevates this 2015 hit from a mere boxing flick to an emotional drama about love, family, and discipline.
Pictured: Rachel McAdams and Jake Gyllenhaal
Photo: Rex/Shutterstock.
The Constant Gardene r (2005)
Beyond the intrigue, this political thriller digs deep into heartbreak, questions of fidelity, and devotion.
Pictured: Rachel Weisz
Photo: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock.
Frozen River(2008)
Melissa Leo and the late Misty Upham star in this bleak drama about two women (one a down-and-out single mom, the other a Mohawk bingo parlor employee separated from her son) going to great lengths to make ends meet.
Pictured: Melissa Leo
Photo: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock.
Still Life(2013)
Eddie Marsan stars as a government employee tasked with sorting out funerals for deceased citizens who have no loved ones. One final case prompts him to investigate the death of a man who died in squalor. Trust us when we tell you that the ending will hit you like a ton of bricks.
Pictured: Eddie Marsan
Photo: Redwave Films/Embargo Films.
Philadelphia (1993)
We still can't listen to Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen without welling up, and it's all due to this tearjerker. Tom Hanks won his first Oscar for playing an AIDS-stricken lawyer suing his old firm for discrimination, with Denzel Washington as the "ambulance chaser" leading the charge.
Pictured: Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks
Photo: Moviestore/REX Shutterstock.
Fruitvale Station (2013)
If you sobbed when Wallace got shot on The Wire, this other Michael B. Jordan vehicle will no doubt have you in the fetal position for days. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that the events in the Ryan Coogler-directed drama actually happened.
Pictured: Michael B. Jordan
Photo: Snap Stills/REX Shutterstock.
All Is Lost (2013)
What this Robert Redford drama lacks in dialogue, it compensates with edge-of-your-seat drama and an overwhelming sense of weariness and frustration. Will Redford save his broken boat? Maybe. Will you ever go sailing again? Probably not.
Pictured: Robert Redford
Photo: Moviestore/REX Shutterstock.
About Time(2013)
On its face, this is a rom-com with a time-traveling twist. Perhaps that's why the built-in life lessons and a plot about terminal illness hit us like a ton of bricks.
Pictured: Domhnall Gleeson and Bill Nighy
Photo: Moviestore/REX Shutterstock.
Still Alice (2014)
Julianne Moore earned her Best Actress Oscar for playing an active and intelligent 50-year-old woman diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Her struggle is heartbreaking, from having to tell her grown children that the disease is genetic, to making a list of questions she must answer every day to keep her memory sharp.
Pictured: Julianne Moore
Photo: Moviestore/REX Shutterstock.
My Girl (1991)
Although the 1991 coming-of-age film is billed as a comedy-drama, director Howard Zieff certainly pulled out all the stops when young Vada Sultenfuss (played by newcomer Anna Chlumsky) had to deal with the tragic loss of her friend (Macaulay Culkin) while growing up in her father's funeral home in the '70s.
Pictured: Macaulay Culkin and Anna Chlumsky
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
The Elephant Man(1980)
David Lynch's 1980 biopic of Victorian freak-show exhibit John Merrick, a man suffering from severe elephantiasis, is a stark indictment of the inhumanity and moral exclusion people routinely inflict on others.
Pictured: John Hurt
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Blue Valentine(2010)
Michelle Williams certainly earned her Oscar nomination in this 2010 film documenting the gut-wrenching dissolution of her character's marriage to a violent alcoholic played by Ryan Gosling.
Pictured: Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling
Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.
Steel Magnolias(1989)
Few movies portray the bonds of female friendship quite like this 1989 ensemble dramedy, adapted from the eponymous Robert Harling play. The film — which features a magnificent cast, including Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, and Dolly Parton — tells the story of how a tight-knit group of Southern women support each other through the various peaks and valleys of their lives. Some of the saddest moments are watching Sally Fields' grief as her daughter, a pre- Pretty Woman Julia Roberts, dies of complications from diabetes. Talk about an emotional gut punch.
Pictured: Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Daryl Hannah, and Dolly Parton
Photo: Courtesy of TriStar Pictures.
P.S. I Love You(2007)
This movie is explicitly designed to turn on the waterworks. It's the story of a young widow (Hilary Swank) who receives posthumous letters of encouragement from her late husband (Gerard Butler) after he dies of a brain tumor.
Pictured: Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
My Life (1993)
This under-appreciated 1993 gem features Michael Keaton as a high-powered PR executive and expectant father who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Fearing that he will not live long enough to see the birth of his son, Keaton records a video documentary of himself so that his child can get to know him.
Pictured: Nicole Kidman and Michael Keaton
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Magnolia(1999)
Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 drama features an interconnected group of characters in L.A, who are forced to grapple with forgiveness, desperation, and the search for happiness when their lives intersect around the death of a terminally ill quiz-show producer played by Jason Robards. The scene where Tom Cruise's pick-up artist character breaks down by the death bed of his estranged father is one of the great emotionally affecting scenes (and Cruise won his third Golden Globe for the role).
Pictured: A theatrical poster for Magnolia
Photo: Courtesy of New Line Cinema.
Atonement(2007)
The iconic Vanessa Redgrave delivers a somber and arresting performance as a novelist who used fiction to atone for the young lovers whose lives she ruined when she mistakenly accused a man (James McAvoy) of a sex crime at the onset of World War II. Adapted from the 2001 Ian McEwan novel, the film deals with decades' worth of grief as a result of a youthful flight of fancy that contributed to the premature death of her sister (Keira Knightley) and the false imprisonment of her sister's lover.
Pictured: James McAvoy and Keira Knightley.
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Beaches(1988)
It is absolutely impossible not to cry during this 1988 drama where the deeply complicated 30-year-friendship between a brash actress (Bette Midler) and a privileged lawyer (Barbara Hershey) is brought to an abrupt end when the latter is diagnosed with a rare heart disease. The opening bars of Midler's performance of "The Wind Beneath My Wings" are usually all it takes to open the floodgates.
Pictured: Barbara Hershey and Bette Midler
Photo: Courtesy of Buena Vista Pictures.
Million Dollar Baby(2004)
Hilary Swank is a bit of a staple in the tearjerker genre. This time around she's a scrappy boxer who eventually develops a bond with her hard-nosed boxing coach, played by Clint Eastwood (who also directed the film). The movie has all the makings of your typical sports drama with a triumphant underdog — until it delivers an emotional sucker punch at the end.
Pictured: Hilary Swank
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
Up(2009)
We have to hand it to this 2009 Pixar offering for completely reinventing the formula we've come to know and expect from sad movies. While most tearjerkers save the most gut-wrenching developments for the third act, this beloved animated feature has both kids and adults reaching for the Kleenex within the first 10 minutes.
Pictured: A scene from Up
Photo: Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
The Fault in Our Stars(2014)
As this 2014 romantic dramedy proves, the only thing more tragic than a fresh-faced teenager with terminal cancer is a fresh-faced teenager with terminal cancer in love. This film though? Doubles down: It features two terminally ill teens in love, played by Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort.
Pictured: Ansel Elgort and Shailene Woodley
Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Life Is Beautiful (1997)
The Italian film's director and star Roberto Benigni took home the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance of a father trying to distract his son from the horrors of life in a Nazi concentration camp.
Pictured: Roberto Benigni with Nicoletta Braschi and Giorgio Cantarini
Photo: Courtesy of Miramax Films.
Boys Don't Cry(1999)
Hilary Swank makes yet another appearance on the list in this indie biopic of Brandon Teena, a trans man whose blossoming romance with a karaoke singer (Chloë Sevigny) was cut short after he was brutally murdered in small-town Nebraska. The movie is not only heartbreaking because of it's ill-fated love story, but also because it illustrates the bigotry and threats that many trans people have historically endured and continue to face.
Pictured: Chloë Sevigny and Hilary Swank
Photo: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father(2008)
Dear Zachary is a unique entry on this list because it's a documentary. The 2008 film starts off as a video diary to the infant Zachary from friends and family giving testimonials about the murdered father he'll never meet. Events take an unexpected, true-crime turn however, and tragedy further compounds itself by the film's end.
Pictured: Zachary with his grandparents
Photo: Courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.
Dancer in the Dark(2000)
Leave it to Lars von Trier to make arguably the most depressing musical ever filmed. Things start out pretty bleak, with Björk starring as an impoverished factory worker who is pinching pennies to pay for an operation that will save her son from the same genetic, degenerative eye disease that is causing her to go blind. If that doesn't sound upsetting enough, things only go downhill from there.
Pictured: Björk
Photo: Courtesy of Fine Line Features.
Sophie's Choice(1982)
Thanks to this critically lauded 1982 drama, the term "Sophie's Choice" has entered the lexicon to stand for any scenario where one must make an impossible decision. In this case, Meryl Streep's Sophie was forced to choose which of her two young children would be sent to the gas chamber when the family was imprisoned in Auschwitz. Streep brought home an Oscar for her performance, and the film as a whole pretty much set the gold standard for tearjerkers.
Pictured: Meryl Streep
Photo: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
12 Years a Slave(2014)
One could argue that the saddest movies on the list are the ones depict the inhumanity of people or institutions in power. Steve McQueen's 2014 Best Picture winner is not only heartbreaking because it depicts the plight of one man sold into slavery, but because it depicts the cruelty that was once an accepted as status quo.
Pictured: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Photo: Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures
Bicycle Thieves(1948)
Vittorio De Sica's 1948 Italian neorealist film is widely lauded as one of the best movies ever made. A young father is desperate to feed his impoverished family, so he scrapes together the money to buy the bicycle necessary for his new job hanging advertisements around the city. As luck would have it, his bike gets stolen on his first day on the job. With his young son in tow, the man sets out on a near impossible mission to get it back.
Pictured: Enzo Staiola and Lamberto Maggiorani
Photo: Courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment.
Amour(2012)
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke isn't known for making particularly uplifting films, and 2012's Amour is no exception. This Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film takes a profoundly sad and somber look at how an elderly Parisian couple fares when one half slips into dementia after a series of strokes.
Pictured: Emmanuelle Riva
Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Terms of Endearment(1983)
No list of sad movies is complete without this 1983 dramedy. Shirley MacLaine's performance, particularly the part where she's dealing with the loss of her daughter, is the barometer against which all other sad-movie performances must be measured.
Pictured: Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)
If Sophie's Choice and Life Is Beautiful taught us anything, the surefire formula for a devastating tearjerker combines the Holocaust with child mortality, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has both. Nine-year-old Bruno's family relocates near a concentration camp when his father, an SS officer, is given a promotion. Little Bruno sneaks off and befriends a prisoner his age near the edge of the camp, where they play checkers through the barbed wire. Although the two boys become great friends, little Bruno learns some hard truths about what his father does for a living, and why his new friend wears what he mistakenly assumes are pajamas.
Pictured: Jack Scanlon.
Photo: Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
The Road(2009)
In this adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, this film's grim, post-apocalyptic vision makes the dystopia of The Hunger Games look downright desirable. The unnamed father and son duo do their best to keep hope alive in a bleak world where roving bands have turned to cannibalism in the bleak hellscape left over from an unspecified disaster.
Pictured: Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee
Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.
The Day of the Locust(1975)
John Schlesinger's 1975 adaptation of the Nathanael West novel of the same name is a grim look at Hollywood in the '30s, particularly at a group of broken has-beens and never-were who failed to make their show business dreams come true.
Pictured: A scene from The Day of the Locust
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
The Notebook(2004)
Sure, we all like to think of 2004's The Notebook as an enduring love story first and foremost, especially given the fantastic circumstances leading up to Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling's sexy, rain-soaked kiss. However, we have to hand it to James Garner and Gena Rowlands for effectively reducing us all to tears at the end.
Pictured: Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling
Photo: Courtesy of New Line Cinema.
Sunset Boulevard(1950)
This 1950 Billy Wilder masterpiece is a noirish, cautionary tale of life after fame. Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond is believed to be a composite of many of the silent film era starlets who descended into reclusivity and madness after fading into obscurity.
Pictured: Gloria Swanson
Photo: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Brokeback Mountain(2005)
This heartbreaking love story of the 20-year affair between two ranch hands, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger, was easily the most talked-about movie of 2005. Ledger and Gyllenhaal began an affair on a job site on the movie's titular mountain, before being fired by the summer's end. The pair continue with a shaky and sporadic relationship, despite their attempts to marry women and live lifestyles that society deemed more acceptable in the '60s to the '80s.
Pictured: Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger
Photo: Courtesy of Focus Features.
Stepmom(1998)
Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts play the respective ex-wife and fiancée to Ed Harris. The tension between the two is heightened when Sarandon passive aggressively uses her children as pawns in her quiet war with her ex. However, the women are forced to make peace when Sarandon is diagnosed with terminal cancer and they realize the family dynamics really will change forever.
Pictured: Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
Precious(2009)
This is easily one of the hardest movies on the list to watch. The 2009 Lee Daniels films tells the story of Claireece Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe), an illiterate, pregnant 16-year-old who regularly escapes into her own fantasy world when faced with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from her family. Despite being in the eighth grade at 16, Precious is tasked with getting her GED and ultimately changing her life's direction so that she can escape her abusive home and provide for her children.
Pictured: Gabourey Sidibe
Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate.
The Champ (1979)
Franco Zeffirelli's 1979 remake of the 1931 film of the same name features a young Ricky Schroder in his film debut. The movie details the dysfunctional relationship between young T.J (Schroder) and his dad (Jon Voight), a former boxer turned alcoholic horse trainer with a gambling problem. However, things get more complicated as T.J.'s estranged mother (Faye Dunaway) comes back into the picture. Despite being just 9 years old, Schroder gives an incredibly impressive onscreen cry. In turn, it will definitely get your waterworks going.
Pictured: Ricky Schroder and Jon Voight
Photo: Courtesy of United Artists.
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